bio

Sandra Menefee Taylor is a Minnesota artist who pushes the boundaries of the role of the artist and art making: building bridges between the audience and the artwork, what writer Suzi Gablik calls "connective esthetics."

She was a member of the Women's Art Registry of Minnesota (WARM) -- one of the first women's gallery collectives in the United States -- during its formative years in the 1970s and '80s. Since then, her work is part of the growing "art in the public interest."

Many of her projects invite the audience to contribute their own memory, experience, and reflection, which she incorporates in sculptural installations that connect the audience back to themselves and their own authentic wisdom.

curriculum vitae

EXHIBITIONS

I'M HERE: Art in the Service of Memory, Form + Content Gallery, Minneapolis Drawings, paintings and artist books created by people living with memory and cognitive loss in Taylor's "In a New Voice" program at Wilder Adult Day Health, Saint Paul.

1995In So Many Words, Minnesota Museum of American Art, St. Paul, MNCulture and Agriculture, New Visions Gallery, Marshfield, WIPhotographic Book Arts in the United States, traveled 13 states, 1991-95Sacred Into Science, pARTS Gallery, Mpls. MN

1994From the Heartland, curated by the University of Minnesota Art Museum, traveling exhibit 1993-94

AWARDS AND RECOGNITION

2015Sandra Menefee Taylor is a fiscal year 2015-16 recipient of an Artist Initiative Grant from the Minnesota State Arts Board. This activity is funded, in part, by the arts and cultural heritage fund as appropriated by the Minnesota State Legislature with money from the Legacy Amendment vote of the people of Minnesota on November 4, 2008.

1999Presenter, First International Leadership Forum On Cardiovascular Health In The 21st Century; A Focus on the Woman's Heart, The Big Island Hawaii

1997-98Presenter at "The Artist, Therapist, Culture, and Spirit" conference, Iowa City IAPresenter at Michael Fields Agricultural Institute's 7th Annual Urban-Rural Conference: Reclaiming the Sacred in Farming and Food, East Troy WIPresenter at New York University Tisch School of the Arts Photography Program's Public Strategies: Public Art and Public Space, New York University, NYC, NYPresenter at Palliative Care Conference, North Memorial Health Care, Mpls MNPresenter at 17th Annual Cancer Conference, St. Gabriel's Hospital, Little Falls MNPresenter at Midwest Regional Society for Photographic Education panel "Collaborative Projects: Documentary and Public Art Works," University of Minnesota, Mpls MN

1996Leadership in Neighborhoods (LIN) grant, from St. Paul Companies for research into the role of art in healing land and body

1995SARE Grant (Sustainable Agriculture Research and Education) USDA, for research work with women and landKeynote address to The Women's Studies Conference, U of S. Dakota, Vermillion

1994Barbara Deming Memorial Fund for Women

1993Project finalist for The Smithsonian Experimental Gallery in Washington D.C.

1993-94President of the Minneapolis College of Art and Design Alumni Association